Warren Buffett Gets Gamed at His Own Meeting

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The Sage of Omaha is annoyed:

Among investors, there are few prizes more coveted than the opportunity to ask Warren Buffett a question at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting. But this year, Fidelity Investments mysteriously claimed more than its fair share.

Turns out, it was no accident—and the Oracle of Omaha is none too pleased about being outfoxed on his own turf. Now he is turning the tables. “There’s no question they figured out how to game the system,” Mr. Buffett says. He said he didn’t like Fidelity’s ploy because “it’s not in the spirit of the meeting.”

Hey, guess what, Warren? You could solve this problem by making yourself available for questions more often than once a year. You’re the one who created the incentive for this mess. You can uncreate it any time you want.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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